Review

A review of Tom Huck's Terror in Black and White and Jesse Small's Twiganatomy

Jesse Small, detail of group of "TalkBubbles," porcelain. Image: courtesy of the gallery

Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art
Kansas City, Missouri
May 7 — June 26, 2010

My main response to the two exhibitions currently at the Sherry Leedy gallery derives from childhood experience. Being a child of the 1980s, I have a certain reaction evoked when confronted with imagery pertaining to that decade. The work of Jesse Small, whose exhibition Twiganatomy elicits, firstly, a Pop-Art sensibility derived from a cultural phenomenon that was only beginning to make its appearance on the real of "high” art. This is the realm of video games. The popularity of the video arcade in the late '70s through the '80s, as well as the characters it has borne, has been present in the collective psyche of the generation of people born in within these few years.

Jesse Small, "Ghost," porcelain. Image: courtesy of the gallery

This is why Jesse Small’s sculptural depictions of one of the most easily recognizable characters from the early days of the arcade, the ghosts from the game Pac-Man, initially elicit a sense of nostalgic fun. This, combined with their brightly colored, graphic-laden surfaces, as well as the way many of them are displayed upon old arcade boxes set on their sides, adds to the sense of lighthearted creativity that is instantly attractive.

Closer inspection, however, finds an undercurrent of social activism that brings a more meditative tone to these sculptures. Various ghosts are enveloped with the trappings of media: letters, numbers, and cartoon “talk boxes” filled with nothing but the overlapping lines of the hundreds of other empty dialogs that vie for space of the surfaces of unknowing, animated symbols of the human spirit, and, more technically, outdated software.

The chandeliers that make up the other half of the work by Small are more difficult to read. Their bright colors and symmetry oppose the arboreal inspiration from which they derive. Their intricacy is also overtly manmade, and is reminiscent of lace, made of cut plastic and steel. By combining the idea of natural and the form of the technological, Small presents the viewer with an interesting dichotomy, one that is a portrayal of the world that we live in.

In contrast to Small’s delicate, more cerebral sculptures, Tom Huck’s large woodcut prints attack the senses with the sights, sound, and odors of an America drowning in its own vices. The strong graphic quality of the woodcut, as well as its stark value contrast, enhance Huck’s sideshow vision of a Midwest-gone-Inferno. Even the title of his exhibition, Terror in Black and White, lends to the atmosphere of these pieces. The prints themselves are massive and take years of work to complete — and within the heavy presence of such an effort, lost souls of a crazed alternate universe peer out. Bodies are flayed and roasted on spits above barbecue grills as slovenly, pigged-nosed figures wallow around it, guzzling beer and peeling hunks of flesh from the eviscerated torsos for consumption. In every inch of Huck’s visions hedonism reigns unchecked. The chaotic American disintegration shown here is not terribly hard for someone who has grown up in the land of Wal-Mart to envision.

Tom Huck, "The Transformation of Brandy Baghead," woodcut print triptych: "Part 1: Beta-Caro-Teen Queen," 82" x 24", "Part II: America's Next Top Omelette," 82" x 48", "Part III: Skating with the Scars," 82" x 24", 2007-2009. Image: courtesy of the gallery

Huck’s prints, while rooted in the contemporary American condition, can be compared to earlier satirical artists. American cartoonist Robert Crumb, whose work continues to raise eyebrows, is an obvious choice for comparison, and a known influence of Huck. Other artists also come to mind. The British satirical painter William Hogarth, with his cautionary series The Rake’s Progress, can be seen within the same vein as Huck’s detail laden, slyly moralistic images. Even from a comparison with Huck’s work, The Transformation of Brandy Baghead Part II: America’s Next Top Omelette, with 16th-century Mannerist painter Bronzino’s work, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, one can derive a similarity in the elongated forms, bawdy subject matter, and both technically and socially enthralling subject matter.

Tom Huck, "Hedgeapple Warfare," woodcut print, edition of 60, 15.5" x 44.25", 2006. Image: courtesy of the gallery

The best part about these two exhibitions is the juxtaposition of one to the other. The gripping, graphic vision of consumerist Hell in Huck’s work plays against Small’s brightly colored meditations on media saturation and overpopulation in such a way as to simultaneously exhibit artistic craftsmanship and driving social issues thoughtfully and successfully.

Jesse Small, "Library of Babel (chandelier), enameled steel and hardware. Image: courtesy of the gallery

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